Hate:A 19-year-old gunman shouting that Jews were ruining the world killed a 60-year-old woman and wounded four other people yesterday at a synagogue 25 miles north of San Diego.

  Local officials described it as a hate crime.

  President Trump offered his “thoughts and prayers,” the salve offered by politicians who plan to do nothing about mass shootings.

  The shooter identified as John Earnest of San Diegoused an AR-15 assault rifle. An online manifesto listing its author as John Earnest claimed to have been motivated by the same white nationalist cause that inspired the Christchurch massacre and the shooting in Pittsburgh. 

Shot Down:NRA President Oliver North, who led a revolt to topple chief executive Wayne LaPierre and lost, announced that he will not run for another term as the organization’s president.

  North said in a letter to the organization that it has “a clear crisis” on its hands that needs to be dealt with “immediately and responsibly.” 

  The NRA is under investigation by New York Attorney Gen. Letitia James who is inquiring whether the gun rights group has violated its tax-free status.

Popularity:President Trump is weighing in with personal invective on the Democratic race for the party’s presidential nomination. He wrote on Twitter, “The Democratic National Committee, sometimes referred to as the DNC, is again working its magic in its quest to destroy Crazy Bernie Sanders for the more traditional, but not very bright, Sleepy Joe Biden.”

  When Trump attacks someone it’s because he thinks they are a serious threat, but one of the most serious threats to his re-election is his own popularity in the polls.

 Here are the average presidential approval ratings through this point in the first term according to ABC/Washington Post and Gallup polling:

   Kennedy 73% 

   W Bush 71% 

   HW Bush 70% 

   Johnson 69%

   Eisenhower 67%

   Nixon 58%

   Truman 56%

   Obama 55%

   Reagan 55% 

   Carter 52%

   Clinton 51%

   Ford 47%

   Trump 38%

The Roundup:Four people were killed in Seattle yesterday when a construction crane fell from the top of a building and crushed four cars in the street. Two of the four killed were crane operators. —A former Florida police officer was sentenced this past week to 25 years in prison for fatally shooting a black man who had been waiting for help on a highway. —  Fifteen people, including six children, died amid gunfire and explosions as Sri Lankan forces raided an extremist group in a seaside town connected to the recent string of suicide bombings.

Enemy of the People:Stripped of celebrities and the presence of President Trump, the annual White House Correspondent’s dinner was held last night like a tree falling in the woods. If it made a sound, no one heard it.

  Trump has refused to attend the dinner and the absence of the President has discouraged all the actors and celebrities who previously clamored to attend the scholarship fundraising event held by the geeks of the press corps. Last night Trump, who has called the press the “enemy of the people,”  held a political rally in Wisconsin.

  Instead of a comedian, the press assembly was addressed by historian Ron Chernow, who still took some funny shots at Trump. He noted that, “George Washington “failed to put his name on Mount Vernon and thereby bungled an early opportunity at branding”He saidAlexander Hamilton was “an immigrant who arrived, thank God, before the country was full. I don’t know why they let the guy in. Someone must have slipped up at the southern border.”

-30-